Deep City Lights
by Kyra4
Summary: Girl could get lost tonight. Alone and depressed for the holidays, on the other side of the globe, Hermione stumbles across a very unexpected face from the past. Can anything good come of this?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all associated characters belong to Ms. J.K. Rowling. San Francisco belongs to the liberals. I receive no compensation for writing this fic except the pleasure of creative expression. And hopefully, a few reviews!

A/N (as of 12/2007): My latest Christmas gift to my Fanfiction BFF Alex25. This is a Hermione Granger / Severus Snape story. Hermione is an adult in her mid-twenties – in other words, she is of age to become romantically entangled with an older man ;o) And while SS/HG is not my OTP, it can definitely be fun to write once in a while for an appreciative audience such as Alex. I believe this fic will be 2 – 3 chapters long. It was meant to be completed by Christmas, but a very nasty dislocation-triple-fracture of my leg two weeks ago, which required surgery and metal plates inserted and a hospital stay and all manner of craziness, set things back a bit. (I'll gladly accept any well wishes you'd like to send me in reviews!) And so what we have here is only the first chapter, which is mostly back-story. Never fear, there will be a romance at some point, it's not just purely Hermione feeling sorry for herself the whole story through. The title, and the inspiration for the story come from the song "City" by the talented Sara Bareilles. The rating currently stands at Teen due to some language and mature themes. Oh, and this fic complies with canon all the way through the end of book 6, but it is _not_ Deathly Hallows compliant. (Well duh, it features Snape.) I think that covers everything! Happy Holidays and happy reading.

A/N (as of 10/2011): So this was intended to be holiday gift for my pal Alex. Holidays 2010? No. Holidays 2009? No. Holidays 2008? Uh... no. God help me, this was supposed to be a holiday gift to a dear friend of mine at the end of 2007. Two Thousand Fricken Unbelievable SEVEN! Gosh. Did RL ever kick my ass down to the corner store and back again on this one. But guess what? NOT ABANDONED! No, I'm happy to say that here at the end of 2011 I came back and FINISHED IT! It's 5 chapters plus an epilogue, and will all be posted shortly. So, enjoy.

_Here in these deep city lights_

_Girl could get lost tonight_

_I'm finding every reason to be gone_

_Nothing here to hold on to_

_Could I hold you?_

_From the song "City" by Sara Bareilles_

DEEP CITY LIGHTS

OOOOO

It had been a mistake to come here. Her head was swimming.

There was too much _light_.

There was a surplus of sound as well, and of scent too – or there had been, as she'd drifted aimlessly through Chinatown not an hour ago. And it was cold; not as cold as Christmas at Hogwarts, perhaps, where the castle grounds would even now be awash in deep, soft drifts of snow, but she had lost the feeling in her fingers and her nose a while back.

Somewhere in Chinatown, maybe.

Or maybe even before that. A couple of hours ago? After her early dinner at the Embarcadero Center? She really ought to have been keeping track of these things.

She really ought to have been wearing gloves and a scarf.

But it wasn't any of those things – the sounds or smells of a late December evening in San Francisco – nor even the bite of frost on her extremities, that overwhelmed her.

It was all the light.

She felt like she was drowning in it.

She'd been in the wizarding world too long, she supposed. Light was more subtle there, in the hamlets and villages that made up much of the wizarding community of Great Britain. Teaching at Hogwarts these past two years, she had become thoroughly accustomed to wand-light, torch-light, sconce-light.

Light that illuminated softly; gently; warmly.

The electric and fluorescent city lights that now surrounded her seemed as cold as the weather.

Yes, it had been a mistake to come here. Not that San Francisco was an innately unpleasant city; to the contrary, it was lovely; or at least, she could appreciate that it _would_ be lovely, if she could somehow stop herself from getting lost in all the light. But being here wasn't helping her in the way she'd hoped it would.

It wasn't helping her to _forget_.

This holiday she'd taken to a city halfway around the world from her home, which she'd embarked upon spur-of-the-moment and completely alone, was supposed to have helped her forget, for a little while at least, that at the tender age of twenty-four she was both an orphan and a divorcee.

It wasn't working.

She had learned a bitter truth on this little international foray; that no matter _where_ she went, there she _was_.

She was still Hermione, daughter of the late John and Ellen Granger, killed a year ago in that most quintessentially Muggle of all senseless tragedies, an automobile accident. She was still Hermione, the ex-wife of Ron Weasley, her childhood friend and sweetheart who was even now in the midst of planning a Valentine's Day wedding to the Australian Quidditch player he'd apparently fallen in love with while on tour with the Cannons six months ago.

He'd still been Hermione's husband six months ago.

He'd come home from that trip, taken her by both her hands, and told her that he would always cherish her as a friend… but didn't they both deserve better than what they'd settled for? Didn't they both deserve true happiness?

She had been caught completely off-guard. Married to Ron and teaching at Hogwarts, she had thought she'd _attained_ true happiness.

Apparently, in Ron's worldview, at least, she'd been mistaken.

She had been dumbfounded.

Even now, months later and with the divorce newly finalized, she was dumbfounded still.

And so here she was, on the other side of the planet, in a city she'd chosen virtually at random, alone for Christmas, trying to forget… and failing miserably.

Because she was still herself. Hermione the orphaned. Hermione the divorced.

Hermione the abandoned.

Drowning in light.

OOOOO

She didn't have to be alone this Christmas, of course. She'd had several offers of places to go. McGonagall had urged her to stay at Hogwarts over the Christmas holidays, and she'd had personal invitations from Harry and Ginny Potter, and even from Molly and Arthur Weasley, seconded by nearly all the Weasley siblings, who had unanimously declared themselves appalled by Ron's behavior and vowed never to accept anyone but Hermione into the family as Ron's wife.

She'd been touched by all of the offers, but she hadn't been able to bring herself to accept any of them. It was the pity that she suspected – no, not suspected, _knew_ – lay just beneath the surface, motivating the kind words and invitations, that had sent her running as fast and as far as she could in the other direction. She couldn't _stand_ the thought of being pitied.

She would not be anyone's Christmas charity case.

A group of half a dozen schoolgirls wearing the crisp white blouses, wine-colored sweaters and grey, pleated skirts of some elite Muggle academy jostled boisterously past her, jolting her from her reverie. They were properly gloved and scarved, she noted distantly, their overlong, slightly awkward adolescent legs protected from the cold by thick grey leggings a shade lighter in color than their skirts. Judging by the multitude of colorful bags swinging merrily from the girls' gloved hands, they were out for some after-school Christmas shopping.

Glancing around, Hermione realized that she had indeed wandered into the heart of the downtown shopping district. Union Square was unfolding in front of her, hemmed in on all sides by the city's glitziest department stores, hotels, boutiques, and theatres, all of which were done up to the nines for the holidays. And the centerpiece of it all; the pinnacle, so to speak, of the vast quantities of carefully manufactured Muggle Christmas cheer that surrounded her, was the giant holiday tree situated in the very center of the square; an eighty-foot cone of sheer, brilliant light.

It was dizzying. In fact, the vertigo she got when tipping back her head to take it all in was very nearly nauseating. Logically she knew that the tree was actually probably quite beautiful, just as logically she knew the same could be said of the city as a whole.

She just couldn't bring herself to appreciate it at the moment.

In fact, she turned and virtually fled in the opposite direction.

OOOOO

It was a different sort of light that brought her up short some twenty minutes later.

It had been twenty minutes of hard walking in the frosty air, paying very little attention to where her feet were taking her. She was breathing heavily when she came to a sudden halt, blinking around at her surroundings like a sleepwalker coming out of a dream to find herself in desperately unfamiliar, and unwelcoming, surroundings.

Her trancelike, unseeing flight from the vibrant heart of the city had landed her in an entirely different, and decidedly less tourist-friendly, sort of district. She had, in fact, fetched up in the middle of San Francisco's seamy underbelly, known to the locals as the Tenderloin.

By now half-frozen, staring around dazedly at the plethora of strip clubs, seedy bars, adult bookstores, and massage parlors that surrounded her, her hand dipped toward her coat pocket almost of its own volition. She needed to assess the contents of her wallet for ready cash, and then hail a cab back to her hotel, post haste.

She reached into the pocket and closed her hand around – nothing.

Oh, no. God, please. Nononono!

She tried the other pocket, then her slacks – front, back, left, right – in mounting desperation. Nothing. There was nothing in any of them. The wallet containing all of her money, her Muggle credit cards and identification, her hotel keycard, her passport – all of it, was gone. Gone.

Sweet Merlin, what was she going to do? She couldn't even use her wand to get herself out of this mess. Feeling mildly disenchanted with the whole wizarding world after the Quidditch-related collapse of her marriage, she'd left it at home, deciding to make a go of this holiday as a Muggle, pure and simple. Muggle transportation, accommodations, activities; the whole nine yards. After all, she'd been raised as a Muggle by her parents; all the holidays she'd ever taken with them had been the Muggle sort. This was to have been almost a… tribute to them, of sorts. And anyway… how hard could it be to do on her own?

Well, she was finding _that_ out, in spades. She was every bit as much of a disaster as a Muggle as she had been as a witch. As_ Ron's_ witch.

Hopeless, she was hopeless. At the moment she barely felt as if she belonged to the wizarding world, and she clearly couldn't hack it as a Muggle. She didn't belong anywhere. She was lost.

Suddenly, frantically, powerfully enough to bring tears to her eyes, she wished for Ron to appear; just appear and take her home. She ducked her head and blinked hard against those traitorous, weak tears. Her gaze lit upon the ring on her left hand; her wedding ring in its customary place on her third finger. She'd never quite been able to take the thing off, even though Ron's had already vanished by the time he'd returned from that fateful Quidditch tour. Removing her wedding ring seemed like the final admission of defeat. The final evidence that she had been a complete failure as a wife.

Hermione Granger, supposedly the brightest witch of her time, who never failed at anything, had failed at this.

She couldn't bring herself to face it, not yet. That was why the ring had stayed on.

It was a golden blur now, the one-carat diamond in the center appearing to double, then triple, as she blinked. "Damn it," she whispered fiercely, raising the offending hand and swiping it savagely across her eyes, "I won't. I _won't!_" She hadn't cried yet, not even once, over her ruined marriage. She wasn't going to start now.

Though with the floodgates this perilously close to being opened at last, that seemed easier said than done.

It was probably fortunate then, that at that moment her thoughts were interrupted by a voice.

"Hey… hey, lady… could you help us out?"

The voice was nearly at her elbow. Hermione jerked her head up and looked around – then down.

In a different universe, they could have been Hogwarts students – that's how young they were. Maybe eighteen… _maybe_. The couple was huddled on the sidewalk in the quasi-shelter of a shop doorway, leaning into one another for warmth; they were even more inadequately dressed for the weather than Hermione herself. The boy – it had been he who had spoken – was wearing only a tee-shirt over his faded jeans; the overlarge flannel shirt that was draped about the girl's thin form had originally been his, it seemed. Then she realized something else, something that took her even more by surprise; the girl was clutching a baby to her chest.

Both the teenagers stared back at her warily, but they seemed to find no judgment or condescension in her face, because the boy spoke up again.

"We just got here today. We used all our money on the bus tickets. Her parents threw her out because she wouldn't give our kid away. I couldn't let her go alone. I'm gonna look for work in the morning, but… she needs a blanket like _now_. The kid, I mean. My daughter. Anything – " he swallowed and Hermione could tell that he was, in a very literal sense, swallowing his pride – "anything would help."

"I… I'm so sorry," she stammered. "I've lost my wallet; I've nothing. I'm sorry; I truly am." She turned away.

"Of course you are," the girl said behind her in a tone of weary sarcasm that caught at Hermione's heart. She had stood there and listened to their plight with a sympathetic expression on her face. Of course they had expected, after all that, that she would make at least some token effort to help them. The girl's apathetic rejoinder was in fact her last line of defense against a feeling of disappointment so profound, so helpless, that it threatened to engulf her.

Hermione understood. She had become well acquainted with that feeling in the days and weeks since her marriage had ended.

Abruptly, she turned back.

The boy tensed immediately. He had misunderstood her intention and was now coiled like a spring, his expression suddenly hostile, ready to jump to his feet in defense of his girlfriend and child.

"You're right," Hermione said, amazing them both. She shrugged one arm out of her coat, then the other. "You're absolutely right. I haven't any money on me, but I can still help a little. Here –" she held the coat out to the boy – "take it."

He hesitated, shocked into immobility.

"Please," Hermione said. "It will do for a baby blanket, until you get something better. And actually – " as the boy reached out and took the coat from her, her eye caught the stone on her wedding ring again, glittering fitfully in the neon light from Big Al's adult bookstore across the street – "actually, here, I want you to have this also."

And quickly, before she could change her mind, she yanked the ring off her finger and held it out too.

Ron wasn't coming to take her home, after all. She could spend the rest of her life waiting for it, _wishing_ for it – it wasn't going to happen. Ron was in Australia planning a wedding to a woman Hermione had never met, nor wished to. He had no knowledge whatsoever of where Hermione was, and probably wouldn't have cared had he known.

He was never coming back. Not to her.

And so, to her, the ring was pointless. To this desperate young couple, though, it would be worth a modest fortune. Even at one of the many nearby pawn shops, sleazy establishments that would buy the ring for only a fraction of its true worth, it ought to fetch them a few hundred dollars. And if they were wise and took it to a more reputable establishment over in the higher-end shopping district… it could go a long way toward changing their circumstances.

She was done with it. Let _something_ positive come out of her ruined marriage, even if not for herself.

The two teens were looking at her as if she were absolutely insane.

"No, really," she said. "It doesn't mean anything to me anymore. I want you to have it. Just… make something good out of it, all right?"

Her voice broke on the last word. Tears were imminent again, she realized. She hoped that one of them would take the ring from her soon, before she broke down completely right here on the street corner in front of them.

The girl took it at last. "Are you – " she stammered, "do you really… um, I mean… thank you."

"Jesus lady, _thank_ you," the boy echoed in an awed voice. And then a heartbeat later, impulsively, "hey, what's your name?"

"Hermione," she said. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, it's just…" he suddenly looked almost bashful. "The kid, you see, we haven't named her yet. Can't agree on anything we both like. Um… so what's your, uh, _middle _name?"

"Jane," she said, suddenly not sure whether to laugh or cry. The boy looked relieved, and shot a questioning glance at his girlfriend, who nodded.

"Janey it is," he grinned.

Hermione simply nodded back at them – to have spoken aloud at this point was too dangerous to her incredibly fragile self-control – and spun on her heel, and fled.

OOOOO

She was walking aimlessly now; completely without direction. She had to get a hold of herself. She had to figure out what to _do_.

She knew where her hotel was, in theory, anyway; she was staying right down by the water, by Fisherman's Wharf.

She had no idea, however, how to get from _here_ to _there_; she had only the vaguest notion of where here was, having paid no attention at all during her walk from Union Square.

Union Square. Why, oh why hadn't she gone into one of the shops there to buy gloves and a scarf? She'd even thought about it, but she hadn't bothered. If she'd only tried to purchase something she would have realized about her wallet sooner, and in a much friendlier part of town.

She had no idea how to find her hotel on foot from where she was, and she could hardly hail a cab and simply say, "Take me to the Holiday Inn at Fisherman's Wharf," with no means of paying for the service. At least at Union Square she could have approached someone with her predicament and asked for… well, for _some_ kind of help. Who was she supposed to approach _here? _ The strip club barkers? The drug dealers? The prostitutes? The junkies?

_All right. Get a grip, Hermione. I just need to find a – _

"Hey! Hey sweetheart, wait up!"

_Oh God, what now?_ Nothing good, she was sure. She did not turn to greet whomever it was that had addressed her; she didn't even slow down. To the contrary, she quickened her pace, but even so, the man fell into step beside her.

He was decidedly not the sort of man, a quick, sidelong glance revealed, that she wanted _any_ kind of attention from.

Of course, his casual use of the term 'sweetheart' when addressing her could have told her _that_ much. Merlin, she just couldn't catch a break.

"_Hey,_" he said again, "what's your hurry, darlin? Hold up a minute – " and he caught her by the arm.

Hermione finally stopped walking and spun to face him fully, yanking her arm violently out of his grasp. "Do _not_ touch me," she snapped, sounding forceful and angry, but feeling only vulnerable and scared.

"Whoa!" The man threw up both his hands in a 'don't shoot' type of gesture. "I was only wonderin' if you could spare anything to help me out."

Hermione's mouth practically fell open. "Do I _look_ like I can spare anything?" she demanded incredulously. "I've lost my wallet and I don't even have a coat. _I've nothing for you,_ so leave me alone." She turned to recommence walking.

But her unwelcome tagalong was not to be dissuaded so easily.

"_Hey!_" Now he sounded pissed off in his own right. He grabbed her arm again, _hard_ this time, and yanked her around to face him once more. His malicious face was only inches from hers, his rank breath washing over her. "It just so happens, sweetheart, that I don't believe you. I saw what you done for them kids; I watched the whole thing. You started out telling _them_ you didn't have nothin' either. Then you turned around and gave 'em all sorts 'a goodies. So why in the hell should I believe you when you say the same thing to _me_, huh?" He gave her a sharp little shake. "I don't think there's any question you're hiding more… _treats_ on you somewhere – " his eyes and tone had turned distinctly lewd – "coat or no coat, and if you ain't willin' to share nice, then I guess I might just have to find 'em for _myself_."

He gave her a sudden, hard tug, forceful enough to make her lose her balance and stumble toward him. Horrified, she saw that right behind him there opened a narrow, and very dark, alley between two buildings. That's what he was pulling her toward.

No no,_ Merlin_, no, she couldn't let him get her in _there_. She dug in her heels and looked around wildly. There were people everywhere, but they were all too wrapped up in their own misery to take any notice of her distress. If he got her into that alleyway, there would be no rescue. She sucked in a deep breath to scream but he slammed a hand over her mouth, hard enough to make her taste blood.

"Mmmph!" Desperation lent her strength as she pulled back against him harder now, struggling frantically. He was ginning like a maniac, apparently not the least bit concerned; despite her struggles, she was losing ground.

And then –

"Hey, _asshole! _ You fucking piece of shit, you let her _go!_"

Hermione's eyes flew to the source of the furious voice; it was the teenage boy, approaching at a run. "I see you, motherfucker!" he shouted at Hermione's attacker. "Get your fucking hands off her, NOW!"

Hermione's assailant froze. Pulling a woman into an alley was one thing; taking on an enraged teenage boy in the prime of his youth and strength was apparently a rather less appealing notion. His moment of distraction and indecisiveness was all Hermione needed.

She yanked herself backward, two, three steps toward the curb – but the man, apparently still not wholly resigned to losing his quarry, came with her, still holding her by the arm.

Hermione cared about nothing anymore except extracting herself from the clutches of this filthy, evil man. Her other hand was free and she brought it up and slapped him hard across the face. Shocked, he let her go. The boy was almost upon them.

"Get – away – from – ME!" Hermione shouted furiously at her erstwhile attacker, and with both hands now, shoved him away, hard. However, newly incensed by the slap, he responded in kind, shoving her right back – and Hermione had the disadvantage of having the curb directly behind her.

She tripped over it and lost her balance, stumbling one, two, three steps backward out into the street, wind-milling her arms in a frantic bid to keep her balance. In the end she managed, but had no sooner allowed a sense of relief to sweep over her, than things went terribly, terribly wrong.

The boy had skidded to a halt and was shouting at her, rooted to the spot, an expression of utter horror in his eyes, but she couldn't for the life of her make out what it was that he was trying to say. The reason she couldn't make it out was the noise – the deafening noise – of a horn blaring, practically in her ear.

Then the sound faded. And everything slowed down.

Suddenly, all she was aware of was the beat of her own heart.

_Tha-thump._

Even the man who had accosted her appeared paralyzed with horrified incredulity, staring at her openmouthed.

_Tha-thump._

There was a sudden, terrible, approaching light.

_Tha-thump._

She was caught up in it completely, paralyzed herself.

_Tha-thump._

It seemed to take an hour just to turn toward that menacing glare.

And what she saw made her wish she hadn't bothered.

Each headlight was larger and higher than her head, and approaching her at breathtaking speed. She heard the horn blaring. She heard the brakes squealing. She heard the onlookers screaming. The MUNI bus couldn't have been more than fifteen feet away from her.

It was not going to stop in time.

Those headlights were engulfing her.

Oh _God_, it had been a mistake to come here.

She had just time to think, _so you _do_ see light_, followed by, _Harry's going to blame himself for this, I just know it _– and then there was the impact, throwing her violently sideways – and then everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

Except that; the impact from the bus should have thrown her backward, not sideways; and it should have killed her, not simply dazed her; and she could feel a person's arms wrapped around her so tightly they were constricting her ability to breathe properly; and the blackness that engulfed her was not that of death but of, she realized a heartbeat later, side-along Apparition.

A split-second after that, her mind racing as usual, she thought she had it figured out. Someone – some magical person – had seen her predicament, raced to her rescue, purposely collided with her and Apparated them both out the bus's path, to safety.

But sweet Merlin,_ who?_

And then it was over. They were abruptly released from the darkness and pressure of Apparition to go tumbling and sprawling across a cold, hard, yet nevertheless, Hermione sensed, indoor surface: a floor.

The impact hurt.

The breath had been soundly knocked out of her. Blinking, she fought to regain it. Behind her she could hear the sounds of another person struggling to their feet, along with a steady, muffled yet emphatic stream of curses.

Her mind racing as always, she had realized even before she managed to rake in a hoarse, grating breath of her own that the inflection of the voice and the vocabulary of curse words were both unmistakably British. A select few of the more colorful curses were unmistakably of wizarding origin as well, _sweet masturbating Merlin in a broomstick shop_ being one that particularly stood out, but of course she hardly needed to analyze his vernacular to conclude that he was a wizard; he had just Apparated her out of the way of a speeding bus.

He was on his feet before she'd even managed, dazed, bruised and winded as she was, to push herself up to her elbows. She was on her stomach, and through the curtain of her thick, disheveled hair she could make out the polished concrete floor she was lying on, terminating in a wall of exposed brick and timber, punctuated by huge, many-paned, industrial-looking windows, some twelve feet high at least.

It looked like the interior of a disused warehouse and yet the furnishings, sparse as they were, were of a decidedly residential nature, suggesting that this was, in fact, a living space.

There were books _everywhere_.

What she didn't see, yet, was any sign of her savior, though she could hear him, colorful language and all, quite clearly. And there was something oddly familiar, though as yet unplaceable, about the sound of his voice. As she was considering this, she heard the thud of his booted feet approaching her across the cement floor. She had tuned out his words for a moment as she took in her surroundings, but now she began once again to process what he was actually saying, and a sudden wave of fear washed over her.

" – can't believe I risked my neck for some stupid, careless Muggle bint, have to bloody well _Obliviate_ now – "

"No!"

He had stopped near her head; she could see the boots now, a dull, rather menacing black. Lying on her stomach, she couldn't see much higher. She threw herself over onto her back, wincing and gasping as a sudden, unexpected pain shot through her leg, hair flying over her face like a veil.

She heard him draw in his breath.

"Obliv – "

"PROTEGO!" She cried instinctively, throwing both arms over her head in a desperate protective gesture, forgetting in her moment of panic that the invocation could do nothing for her without her wand present to back it up.

Except, as it turned out, that wasn't true.

That one, screamed word stopped him cold, shocking him into silence before he could conclude his memory-erasing spell. "A _witch?_" he said incredulously, his voice having gone quiet now; quiet and extremely cautious.

Hermione pushed herself into a sitting position, gritting her teeth to stifle a cry as her leg protested. There was definitely something wrong there, something that had escaped her while she'd been lying still. She must have landed on it badly.

At the same time, he hunkered down on one knee beside her, muttering "what the_ devil_ - ?"

They reached at the same moment to push her hair out of her face.

Their eyes met.

His wand, which had been trained on her, dropped to the cement floor with a clatter.

OOOOO

"_You,_" they breathed in near perfect unison. Hermione's head was spinning. Of all the people, all the people in the_ world_, that she had never thought she'd see again for as long as she lived, this man damn near topped the list.

Perhaps the greatest unsung hero of the war against Voldemort, his betrayal of the Dark Lord at a crucial moment had allowed Harry the edge he'd needed to win. Even so, he had dropped out of sight, dropped off the face of the _earth_ so far as anyone in wizarding Britain could tell, no more than a week after that precious victory had been secured.

It should have been his moment of vindication, of triumph, after having been mistrusted and treated as a pariah for a good portion of his life, especially since the events surrounding the death of professor Dumbledore. It had come to light of course, after that final battle, that this reluctant, indeed _tortured_ hero had been acting under Dumbledore's orders all the time, even when he'd appeared to throw his lot in with the Death Eaters, and that Dumbledore's death had in fact driven him half mad with grief.

Finally validated, his struggles and sacrifices at long last recognized, he could have slipped into a quiet retirement with the respect, and gratitude, of all of wizarding Britain.

Instead he had vanished completely, no one knew where or why.

And now she had found him – or he had found her – they had found _each other_ – under completely random circumstances, in a foreign country on the other side of the globe. She was speechless.

He wasn't.

"Who the bloody hell sent you here, Granger?" hissed Severus Snape, his dark eyes narrowed to slits.

She just stared at him, open-mouthed, in stunned disbelief. A very familiar expression of irked impatience swept across his face. "Damn it, woman," he said, "you are _going_ to tell me what in the hell is going on." And seizing her firmly by the arms, he hauled her to her feet.

Their eyes met again, in shock, as they both heard the distinctive crunch of something going _dreadfully_ wrong in Hermione's injured leg. There was an instant in which her eyes went impossibly huge; her lips parted, but there seemed to be no sound she could make to adequately convey the distress she was in.

Then she slumped forward in his arms, and her eyes rolled back even as he started shouting her name. And for the second time, everything went dark.

OOOOO

Coming back to consciousness was not a particularly welcome process for Hermione. The darkness had been peaceful, even comforting. A soft floating nothingness in which she didn't have to think or worry or fret or grieve; in which she could rest, _finally_ rest as she hadn't been able to do in weeks, not even in her plush hotel room.

Reluctantly emerging from this place of respite, her first sensations, even before opening her eyes, were that her head ached and her leg ached worse. She stretched, frowning, trying to place her finger on exactly what had happened and where she was. She wasn't at home, certainly; nor was she in her hotel bed; this felt different. But then, where? Something... had _happened_, something... had –

With a sudden intake of breath, her eyes flew open, and she found herself staring up at a ceiling of rough-hewn timber and exposed pipes that seemed to hang impossibly high above her. The walls that soared up to meet it were of brick and glass, and everything came back to her in a rush.

Losing her wallet – losing _herself_ – the homeless teenagers with their baby – the filthy man who had accosted her – the bus barreling toward her, the light and the _noise_ of it – being knocked aside and Apparated to safety – and finding herself in the care, and presumably the _home_, of –

_Oh, God._

Professor Snape.

She sat bolt upright, even though this produced a major pang of protest from her head. She was in the center of a large, low bed; little more than a black platform with the mattress sitting atop it, made up in stark, crisp snow-white linens. The bed was set diagonally in the corner of a vast, open living space that was currently flooded with light from the enormous many-paned windows that were twice as tall as a man.

This immense room seemed to be all things in this unusual abode; bedroom, living room, dining room, with a steel-and-granite kitchen set in the far corner. A wood-and-metal spiral staircase led to an open loft area above that appeared to be set up as an office. The only thing she didn't see immediately was where the bathroom was.

And the bathroom was precisely what she needed.

Gingerly, she scooted to the edge of the bed and swung her feet onto the cold, smooth cement floor, noting distantly that her shoes had been removed. She tested her weight cautiously on her injured leg; it protested, but it bore up. She stood, wincing. Just sore – not broken. Merlin, when she'd heard that _crunch_ – she shuddered.

A yawn took her as she stood there at the foot of the bed, gazing about herself. It was very quiet here; peaceful in a way that contrasted strangely with the harsh, industrial outlines of the space. Dust motes danced lazily in the impossibly long sunbeams that fell from those oversized windows. There were only a few pieces of furniture scattered about, but they were well placed, and appeared well-made and comfortable. One entire wall, floor to ceiling, end to end, was devoted to shelving for books. She didn't believe she'd ever seen so many books in one place outside of a library. To Hermione, they were a breathtaking sight.

She still didn't see the bathroom, though, and she didn't see – _him_ – anywhere either.

Limping just the smallest bit, she went in search of the toilet. It was her former potions professor, however, that she discovered first.

He was sprawled across a sofa about halfway down the room, one leg trailing off the edge, dead asleep. A thick book lay open across his chest, and one arm was flung over his eyes, shielding them from the light flooding in through the vast, un-curtained windows. On the coffee table beside him sat four coffee mugs, three of them empty and the last half-full. Impulsively, Hermione reached down and closed a hand around it. It was cold.

She straightened up and spent a long moment just watching him, his chest rising and falling gently in sleep. Merlin, but the man was an enigma. He had seemed to vanish off the face of the earth, only to fetch up _here_ of all places – and by the look of things he had been here, comfortably, for quite some time. That cow Rita Skeeter at the Daily Prophet would have paid her a _fortune_ for the information on his whereabouts; of that Hermione was absolutely certain.

Why had he fled just when he'd been vindicated at last?

And what in the world had brought him _here?_

He seemed at home in these strange surroundings, and apparently had little desire to be found out, judging by his violent reaction to her identity and his furious conviction that – _someone_ – had sent her after him.

Well, she'd give him no further cause for worry. She'd collect herself, write him a note explaining her presence; the strange coincidence, that's all it was, that had thrown them together – and expressing her gratitude that he had first saved and then cared for her while unconscious, without scrambling her brains through an Obliviate spell – and then she'd take her leave while he slept.

Another huge yawn took her. Looking past the sofa, she now saw what she took for the entrance to the bathroom; a doorway-sized opening in the wall that went straight up to the ceiling. On the other side of the opening, the wall continued on to the corner of the room, but it was now composed of translucent glass blocks rather than the distressed brick that was everywhere else. Yes, those glass blocks had a distinctively bathroom-y look to them, she decided.

She was proven right, finding herself, a moment later, within a large bathroom made up almost entirely of the thick, pale green glass. There were no windows; but a row of skylights, as well as plenty of diffused light filtering in from the main living area, illuminated the space nicely.

The most disconcerting thing was the lack of a closable door. True, due to the layout of the room the only thing that could be seen from the oversized entryway was the vanity area, but… _still_. She guessed that Snape must not often entertain company, judging by his lack of discretion in this area.

A bathroom with no door. _Honestly_.

Although the glass block architecture was actually quite attractive, she spent as little time in it as she possibly could.

Returning to the living room, she was driven into the kitchen by thirst. She filled a large glass with cold water from the tap and drained it… then filled it again, and again. She'd done it four times over before she felt properly quenched.

Dutifully, she rinsed the cup and placed it on the drying rack before turning to survey her surroundings for some parchment and a quill – or, alternatively, paper and a pen – whichever it was that Severus was favoring these days. A hasty note was all that now stood between her and a quick retreat.

But she could not, at a glance, locate any writing materials. It occurred to her that they must be up in the loft area; that was, after all, where her erstwhile professor appeared to have set up his office.

Inwardly she groaned. She still felt fatigued, and the longer she stayed on her feet, the more her injured leg protested. It had gone from an occasional twinge to a steady and moderate discomfort. Perhaps it wasn't entirely healed yet after all. Climbing that spiral staircase seemed about as attractive to her at the moment as, say, riding a bicycle _up_ that absurdly crooked street she'd been to see a couple of days ago.

And that wasn't all. Once she'd gone up there and written her note, what _then?_ She'd simply walk back out into the city of San Francisco… to _what?_ She still had no money, no identification, no wand, no way back to her hotel. At this point she didn't even know what part of the city she was in. Or… or was she even still in San Francisco at _all?_ She froze, contemplating this possibility, which hadn't occurred to her before. What if Snape had merely been visiting the city, same as her? What if this flat were actually someplace else entirely? She could be practically anywhere. Merlin, it was starting to make her head spin.

Yet another monstrous yawn rocked her.

She realized she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open.

She looked toward the couch where Snape slumbered on, oblivious… and then back to the bed in the corner of the room. "Oh, God," she muttered aloud to herself, "am I really considering…?"

She was.

Snape was fast asleep. He would never be the wiser if, instead of leaving right this _very _minute, she were to lay back down for… oh, just another hour or so. "I shouldn't," she whispered, but in truth her mind was already made up. Physically as well as mentally, the notion of walking out Snape's door right now was just too daunting. She needed to get her bearings and figure out what to do. She wouldn't even go back to sleep, she determined; she'd just rest a little while, and think things through.

As she stumbled back across the room to the bed, she made a point of really looking out of the large windows that lined the room. In the distance she could see a city skyline framed by blue water and rolling white fog, in which the Transamerica Pyramid stood out unmistakably. On the street below, a cable car clanged by.

So she was still in San Francisco. There was some comfort in that. She was still far from home, but at least she hadn't been transported to Budapest or Timbuktu. Her hotel was still somewhere nearby, if only she could figure out a way to reach it. She breathed a small sigh of relief. Reaching the bed, she collapsed face-down on top of the covers.

She was asleep again the instant her head hit the pillow.


	3. Chapter 3

Of course, the next time she woke, he was staring at her.

She'd actually felt a whole lot better, until she realized that.

It was a gentler awakening that her first had been; the light was softer, diffuse; it was dawn light, perhaps, or twilight.

Also, she'd felt really _rested _this time; which, like the quality of the light, was quite a bit different from her previous awakening in this bed. She might almost – _almost_ – have said that she felt… well, peaceful. And _that _was a feeling that she had very nearly forgotten in recent months.

No, she hadn't felt peaceful in a _long_ time, and this was certainly the first time she'd found herself even within shouting distance of that particular emotion over the course of this whole unhappy, ill-thought-out holiday.

There had actually been the tentative beginnings of a small, yet genuine smile on her lips – (she had almost forgotten the feel of her mouth curving upward at the corners in just that way) – as she stretched and turned her head…

And then _everything_

_ Just_

_ Stopped_.

Because he was sitting right there next to the bed, in a black leather easy chair, his posture _anything_ but easy, hunched forward and looking as tightly drawn as a bowstring; staring at her with dark, hooded, inscrutable eyes.

Her breath caught in her throat as she rocketed into a sitting position, her wide eyes locked on his narrowed ones. He had changed clothes, she noted vaguely; she also made a mental note of the two more coffee cups and the plate bearing a half-eaten bagel that now graced the nightstand.

He shifted position abruptly then, leaning back in the chair, crossing his arms over his chest, and raising one eyebrow. He seemed to be inviting her to speak. She opened her mouth to do so, and managed only to croak out a single word in a voice that seemed rusty with disuse.

"Long?"

Now his other eyebrow joined the first. She swallowed hard, struggling for composure and some modicum of control over her voice.

"How long did I sleep?" There; a whole sentence with a beginning, middle and end. She was doing better already.

"The first time," he asked, "or the second?"

"The… what?" It took her a moment to remember having gotten up at all. She had only gotten out of bed for maybe five minutes, tops… and she'd been positive that during those same five minutes he had been deeply, soundly, incontrovertibly asleep. So how on earth –

"How did you know?" The croakiness was ebbing from her voice now, thank God for small favors, anyway.

"That you'd been up and about? Well, there was the appalling mess you left in my kitchen, for one thing, Miss Granger."

_Appalling mess?_ As best she recalled, all she'd done was get herself some water, rinse the glass and leave it on the counter. If this was what he considered to be an "appalling mess," then the man had been living alone for _far_ too long.

"The glass –"

"_Forget the glass._ Granger, damn it, who _sent_ you? And _why?_" He gave his head a single quick, hard shake, then looked away from her, raising a hand to massage his temple. It looked as though he were responding to the onset of one bastard of a headache. More to himself than to her, it seemed, he muttered, "am I never going to be allowed just a little bit of peace?"

She hardly knew what to say in response to that. She actually opened her mouth, shut it with a snap; opened it again. "No one sent me here," she managed finally, lamely.

His eyes cut back to hers, a combination of weariness, incredulity, and disgust evident in his expression. "Granger, you were never a stupid girl," he said. "You don't actually expect me to believe that all of this has been some sort of… _coincidence?_ What kind of fool do you take me for! Now I'm offended as _well_ as irate."

_Irate? Did he just say _irate?_ Who in God's name uses that word in conversation?_

"Look Professor, I –"

He cut her off with a voice like steel. "There are no professors here."

"Well, what do you _want_ me to call you!" she demanded, her own voice now rising in tangent with her mounting frustration. The man was being simply impossible. "I don't exactly think that 'Severus' is appropriate, do you!"

"And why wouldn't that be appropriate?" he countered. His eyes swept briefly over her, sitting there in the middle of his rumpled bed. There was nothing overtly suggestive about that look, but it made her blush all the same, especially when coupled with his next words. "We're both adults here, after all."

She huffed a breath, hands fisting in the bedclothes.

"Fine… _Severus_. I don't know who you think is after you, or what you think is going on, but if you honestly believe that anyone is actively seeking you out, then I'm sorry to inform you that you have delusions of grandeur. Nobody_ sent_ me here, I came by myself on this disaster of a holiday! And if you'd be so kind as to direct me back to the Holiday Inn at Fisherman's Wharf, I will remove myself from your presence forthwith."

He stared at her in stony silence for a long, long moment. Then, "you – came on holiday – _here_ – by yourself?"

"YES!" she exclaimed hotly, "why do you find that so hard to believe!"

"Because _no_ one goes on holiday alone unless they have no one to go on holiday _with_. And I should have thought that you of all people, Miss Granger, would have a bloody queue of holidaying companions to choose from."

"Well, that just goes to show how little you know about me, doesn't it, _professor!_" she spat out, horrified to feel the prickling onset of tears building just behind her eyes.

_Oh, Merlin, no. Please do not let me break down and cry, sitting in Professor Snape's BED! Please, please, please, I have to get a hold of myself, NOW._

Another long, spiraling moment of being stared at as she struggled for composure.

"Huh," he said finally, almost meditatively. And then astounded her by saying, in a perfectly conversational tone of voice, "in answer to your first question, you slept about twelve hours the first time – and about _twenty_ hours this time. Nearly a day and a half, in other words, which is hardly surprising considering how badly injured your leg was; you needed time to heal. Nevertheless, I would imagine you're probably rather hungry at the moment. As fascinating as this conversation is turning out to be, I suggest we pause for breakfast if you're agreeable."

Her mouth dropped open. Abrupt courtesy at this juncture was definitely not something she had expected. The man was full of surprises, that was for sure. "I –" she stammered, "I, uh…"

"Eloquent as always," he remarked, standing and sweeping his dishes off the nightstand. "Such a lovely trademark of yours, Miss Granger," he threw over his shoulder as he turned toward the kitchen. "So rare in younger people today. There are clean towels in the bathroom if you'd like to freshen up. And never fear, we _will_ be continuing our little chat soon enough."

OOOOO

In the bathroom she found not only clean towels as promised, but that he'd actually laid out a change of clothes for her as well. It was a Muggle-variety sweatshirt with the name of the local sports team emblazoned across the front, with matching jersey pants in shades of black, grey and orange… and though the ensemble appeared to be at least two sizes too large for her, they also looked so soft, warm and inviting that she found herself accepting the unspoken invitation to shower and change.

Some twenty minutes later she emerged from the bathroom, her new attire loose but gloriously comfortable, hair tangled and clumpy as a result of her inability to locate a brush. The light at the windows was stronger now, she noticed, confirming that it was indeed the break of day. She found bagels, fruit, coffee and orange juice laid out on the granite eating bar that separated the loft's kitchen from its living area.

Her erstwhile professor was seated on the sofa, an enormous book in his lap, a fresh cup of coffee in his hand. _Merlin_, but he drank a lot of the stuff. Hermione appreciated good coffee as much as anyone, but it appeared that Severus Snape was unfamiliar with the concept of "too much of a good thing."

He glanced up from his reading just long enough to invite her, albeit somewhat curtly, to help herself to whatever caught her fancy.

He waited until she'd settled down in an armchair across from him and shoved half a bagel in her mouth before speaking again.

"So, out with it, Granger. What in Merlin's name is going on here?"

Her eyes narrowed as she chewed, refusing to be hurried. She just bet he'd done that on purpose; waited until she'd stuffed her face and was incapable of making any sounds at all that were fit for polite company, before launching into his interrogation.

Impossible man. He could jolly well wait.

Thoroughly incensed now, she took even more time than was strictly necessary in chewing and swallowing her food.

Finally, she could put off speech no longer. So she did the natural thing. She turned it all around on him.

"Maybe you could tell me what you're doing here, on the other side of the globe, hiding away like some sort of recluse or… or _fugitive_."

His dark eyes flashed. "I don't have to tell you _anything_. I'm not the one who invaded your life yesterday –"

"I didn't invade anything! _You_ saved _me _–"

"For which I have yet to be thanked!"

"You haven't given me the opportunity! From the second I opened my eyes, it's been nothing but what-are-you-doing-here _this_, and who-sent-you _that!_ I haven't had _time_ to thank you!"

"Well, I'm listening now."

Hermione abruptly found herself fighting hyperventilation as she struggled with her emotions. "Maybe," she fairly gasped out, "I don't… actually feel… all that _grateful!_"

Snape leaned forward now, his eyes zeroing to slits and his hands clenching on the armrests of his chair. "What the hell are you saying?" he demanded in a deceptively quiet voice. "Are you implying that you would rather that bus had _hit_ you? Because that's a dangerous frame of mind to be in, Miss Granger. Take it from someone who's been there. A_ very _dangerous frame of mind."

For a moment she simply gawped at him, processing what he had just said, what he had just _admitted_ to her.

And then quite suddenly it seemed that there was not enough air left in the whole of that enormous loft room. She was pulling it in and in and in, without ever seeming to fill her lungs, _or_ be able to let it go again.

The room was spinning. She dropped her head between her knees, her breakfast clattering to the floor, as she fought for breath, dimly registering the fact that he had slid to his own knees in front of her and was gripping her hard by the shoulders, shouting her name.

Except it wasn't her name anymore. And that was the crux of the matter, wasn't it? So very much had happened since she had been just Hermione Jane Granger, pride of her professors, first in her class at Hogwarts. So very much had _changed_.

"I'm… not… Miss… and… I'm not… _Granger!_" she panted. And then it was as if a floodgate had opened, and the whole sorry story came tumbling out.

All of it.


	4. Chapter 4

He sat in absolute silence, letting every last detail spill out of her, barely moving at all except for when she reached the point of Ron's homecoming from the fateful Australian Quidditch tour, and the news of his love affair, with which he had lambasted her over dinner that night. At that point he stood; stalked across the room, his movements abrupt and jerky; and returned a moment later with a box if tissues in his hand. He dropped the entire box onto her lap without a word, settled back in his chair again, and resumed his quiet, attentive demeanor as she struggled to continue her narrative, now liberally interspersed with snuffles and short breaks in which she fought for composure.

"So that's it," she finished at last, her voice little more than a hoarse whisper. "I'm here because I didn't want to be anybody's charity guest at Christmas. Any of them would have had me, but…" She trailed off; looked away from him; looked back. Her eyes were glazed, unfocused. "There is no nefarious plot to hunt you down, or if there is, I am entirely unaware of it. I just… I needed… space, and… and…"

And then she was crying again, her face buried in her hands and a wad of tissues; exhausted, sluggish, worn out tears. Nothing remotely as powerful as the maelstrom of sobbing that had overcome her earlier, right before she'd launched into her tale – but somehow even sadder. She had no concept of how long she'd cried like this when she heard him mutter, "oh, hell," and then he was on his knees in front of her chair again, taking her by the arms and pulling her down onto the floor beside him, crumpled up tissues and all, into a surprisingly gentle embrace.

"It's all right," he soothed her, "don't –"

Suddenly angry and defensive, she stiffened, trying to yank herself away. "Don't tell me not to cry! Don't you think I've –"

"Don't _fight_ it, is what I was going to say, Hermione," he cut her off. Her tear-bright eyes flew up to his, amazed. "Don't fight it. Let it out. It's like poison; it needs to get out. All of it, it's okay. Let it go."

And then she was crumpling again.

He held her as she cried for a long, long time.

OOOOO

On a dim and distant level, she registered him lifting her from the floor. Some time had passed, and she'd cried herself out completely. She was totally overcome with fatigue, and felt strangely... empty, somehow. But curiously enough, this was not the awful, desolated emptiness she'd been expecting. No, this emptiness felt somehow... well, _clean_. It felt as if, just as Snape had said, there had been some sort of spiritual wound within her that had been full of poison; a terrible, festering ichor - and that now it had been bled empty and clean. That didn't mean it had been healed; no, the wound was still there. Probably would be for a long time yet. But with the poison drained from it, she'd finally reached the point she'd been searching for without even consciously knowing that she was searching at all. A clean and empty point from which she could start over.

But not just yet. Not just now. There was only one thing on the agenda right now, and that was more rest. As trusting and compliant as a child in her exhaustion, she dragged up her arms - they were unbelievably heavy just now - and circled them loosely around her former professor's neck as he carried her back over to the bed. Floating in a dim, muted space that barely resembled consciousness at all, she hardly even noticed the way he slid one hand under her head when easing her down against the pillows. Hardly noticed - but _did_. Even compromised, she was still Hermione, after all.

Then he was sliding his hand - gently, so gently - out from beneath the heavy, tumbled mass of her hair and murmuring almost directly into her ear, "Hermione, you need to let me go." It was only then that she realized she still had her hands linked round behind the base of his neck. She let them fall away, her arms coming rest loosely beside her on the coverlet.

"I'll be right back," he told her, starting to turn away.

Sudden panic flared within her. She didn't want to be left alone. Frantically, _achingly_ she didn't. "Wait," she croaked, barely audible. Then again, louder, "_wait_." She struggled up onto her elbows.

Dropping back into a crouch, he took her by the shoulders and pressed her down, into the soft embrace of the bed. "I'm only going to the kitchen, Hermione," he said quietly. "To get you a damp cloth for your forehead. You're flushed and overheated. I'm not leaving you alone. I'll be right back. Okay?"

Even while fighting to keep her _own_ eyes open, she registered the surface exasperation in his - but deeper down, underneath, there was understanding - a totally unexpected and _staggering_ amount of understanding. And something that might almost be described as kinship, as well.

She took a deep, shaky breath, relaxing.

" 'kay," she whispered. She watched him stand and walk away. By the time he returned, not even a minute later, she was fast asleep again.

OOOOO

The next time she opened her eyes, Hermione noticed right away that the light was very different. It had been dawn when she and Snape had had their breakfast conversation; barely light out at all. Now, the light that slanted in through those astonishingly tall windows was a thick amber-gold; the light of late afternoon verging on evening.

_Merlin_, she thought, sitting quickly up in the bed, _I've slept the whole day!_ And then, a moment later, _or is it more than one? _

She had totally lost track of the passage of time.

Pushing her sleep-tousled hair back out of her face, she scanned her surroundings; she appeared to be quite alone. A folded-over note that she spied, an instant later, on the nightstand, confirmed it.

The note was brief and to the point:

_Had to leave for business._

_Will be back by dark._

_Wait for me._

_Will return you to your hotel if you wish._

_Meantime, make yourself at home._

_SS_

Back by dark. That couldn't be too long from now, judging by the light. She swung her feet over the edge of the bed, easing them down to the floor. The cool smoothness of the polished concrete felt surprisingly nice underneath them, surprisingly... _inviting_. She curled her toes.

She was starting to see it now, the attraction of living in a space like this. To the unobservant eye it was stark, but... well, the truth of the matter was that she was already feeling more comfortable here than she had in her hotel, or even in her own home, since it had been abandoned by her husband.

She was feeling more comfortable here than she had felt... well, _anywhere_... in a long time.

Though a large part of that might have been the books. Sweet Merlin, so many _books._ Hundreds... maybe more. As she had noted on her first awakening in this unusual domestic space belonging to her formerly least favorite Hogwarts professor (with the notable exception of Umbridge, of course), one entire wall was devoted to books, right up to the ceiling.

And the ceiling in here... was _high_.

Standing, reaching up and back to twist her hair into a messy knot, she decided to raid the pantry and see what there was to eat around here... and then to have a look at just what sort of titles the elusive Severus Snape was favoring these days. Maybe even crack one or two of them open.

Just one of two of them, mind.

OOOOO

When he returned about an hour later, it was to find her curled up at one end of his sofa, a blanket from the bed tucked around her up to the waist, an empty plate and glass at her elbow, and at least half a dozen books piled haphazardly beside her on the couch. She was deeply engrossed in a volume on the history of a nearby northern California wizarding enclave located just outside the scenic coastal community of Half Moon Bay.

She raised her head to see him standing in the doorway, frowning.

"The books on those shelves are very carefully organized and cataloged," he said by way of greeting.

Hermione rolled her eyes and closed the book in her lap, but held her place with a finger even so. It really had been very interesting and she didn't want to lose her place.

"I left markers in place of every book I pulled out," she replied. "Your collection is breathtaking. I wouldn't do anything to... dishevel it."

"Hm." He regarded her for a moment in silence, then crossed over to her, shrugging out of a heavy Muggle-style coat as he did so. Beneath the coat he was wearing blue jeans and a black turtleneck. Muggle attire from head to foot. It was so... _odd_. And yet he wore it comfortably. He _had_ had one Muggle parent, Hermione remembered. Plus he'd apparently been here, living in the Muggle world, for quite some time. The latter fact probably had more to do with the easy, unselfconscious way in which he was carrying himself than the former, she thought.

There was no arguing with the fact that he had worn robes well, with an undeniable dramatic panache; yards of jet-black fabric billowing in his wake as he'd stalked the halls of Hogwarts, striking awe and fear in the hearts of his students. And yet...

And yet he also wore _these_ clothes well . They looked quite decent on him. _He_ looked quite decent in _them_. Well. This was an unexpected turn for her train of thought to be taking. Hermione felt a blush mounting in her cheeks.

"So what... is it... that you _do_ here, exactly?" she blurted out, rather more abruptly than she'd intended.

A peaked eyebrow was the only response she got.

"For work," she clarified, leaning forward to deposit the book she'd been reading on the coffee table, giving it up as a lost cause for the moment. She could find her place in it again later. What mattered now was that the act of putting it down, ever so carefully of course, gave her legitimate cause to break eye contact.

And compose herself.

"I work as a consultant for the university," he said, sinking into a chair opposite the sofa, directly across the coffee table from where Hermione sat. "San Francisco State University. The chemistry department. That is how Muggles refer to potions, you know. Chemistry. They think me some sort of a genius, I believe." Daring to raise her eyes again, Hermione saw just the barest ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. "I have so many fresh ideas, they tell me. The head of the department's been after me since I first signed on, to tell him where exactly it was that _I_ studied, so he can send out a recruitment team. Snag a few more just like me. But because I'm only a consultant, not a member of the faculty, I'm under no obligation to share that information unless I wish to. Which I do not."

He leaned back in the chair; crossed his legs. "I've been offered a full-time position there; I've even been offered tenure. Mostly, I think, because were I to accept, I would _have_ to provide my credentials. That poor man's being eaten up by curiosity, I think. He's gone half past mad with it." There was that tiny, dark half-smile again, flitting across his face and then gone. "But I neither need nor want another professorship. I _like_ the freedom of consulting work. I make my own hours, come and go as I please. Keep to myself. And I'm left with plenty of time to read. And think. So pray tell me, what is it, Miss Gra -" he paused; frowned slightly. "What is it, _Hermione_, that _you_ do for a living?"

"I... I've been teaching at Hogwarts these past two years."

"Is that so. How utterly unsurprising. And your subject is?"

"Two subjects, actually. Runes and Inter-Species Magical Cooperation. That's a new one, an elective for seventh years. Minerva let me introduce it last term."

"Minerva's a good woman," Snape said reflectively. "Fair, level-headed, and incredibly dedicated. Hogwarts is fortunate to be under her direction. She is deeply concerned about you, you know."

"She... wha... _what?_" Hermione stammered, caught completely off-guard. "How would you _know_ a thing like that?"

He regarded her for a moment longer, then reached down and pulled something from the front pocket of his jeans. He held it out to her across the coffee table. "More reading material," he said, his tone deceptively bland. "I picked it up on my way home."

Taking it from him, she realized that it was a wrinkled copy of the Daily Prophet, which had been folded over several times in order to make it "pocket sized".

"The Prophet," she exclaimed, unfolding it. "Where on earth did you _get_ this?"

"There are easily a dozen newsstands in this city that stock wizarding papers," he said, "and of those dozen, I know of two that sell wizarding publications from overseas. Including our beloved Daily Prophet. One simply has to know where to look."

"How extraordinary," she breathed, and then, a moment later, smoothing the paper out and catching sight of the headline at last, "oh. Oh, _no_."

The article about her didn't take up the _whole_ front page; there was that much to be grateful for, at least. The banner headline was something about trade negotiations with goblins reaching a dangerous stalemate. But she was there nevertheless; tucked into a lower corner, but still apparently front-page material. _Merlin_.

_War Hero Goes Missing_, the headline read. Smaller than the one about the goblins, but bold-faced and quite attention-grabbing even so. There was a photograph of her too, and a rather unflattering one at that, which made her suspect the involvement of everyone's favorite bottom-feeding scum-sucker, Rita Skeeter. A quick glance at the name beneath the headline confirmed it; the article was a Skeeter specialty, all right. She scanned it briefly, her dismay mounting by the second.

Certain phrases jumped out at her, each more mortifying than the last.

_Recently orphaned..._

_Crumbling marriage..._

_Abandoned for another woman..._

_Emotionally fragile..._

_Increasingly erratic behavior..._

_Self-harm a distinct possibility..._

_Friends and colleagues, including Harry Potter himself, deeply concerned..._

_Plea for information, directly from the Headmistress of Hogwarts..._

Oh, God. oh, _God_. It was all her own deepest insecurities about herself and her life, wildly sensationalized and splashed across the front page of a newspaper for just anyone... _anyone_... to see and read and speculate on, and draw their own conclusions about. It was _beyond_ awful. It was _beyond_ humiliating. It was... it was...

There weren't even words.

She raised her shocked, horrified eyes back to his, and found him watching her intently.

"Well, Hermione," he said said quietly, "you seem to have caused quite an uproar. Don't you want to let them all know where you are?"

"God, NO!" she practically screamed, her voice breathless and a touch hysterical. "Tell them where... you can't be serious! Tell them where I am - _why?_ So they can suffocate me with their false pity again? Even the _real_ pity was awful, but the false was... the false was..."

She broke off; swiped the back of her hand across her face. The tears had started flowing again, but she was only marginally aware of them. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. "I just want _peace_. I just want _dignity_. I just want space, and time, to try to heal. I will not be their goddamn FREAK SHOW, I _won't!_ I... won't..." Voice trailing away to a whisper, she lowered her hand, very slowly, away from her face. It was, she realized quite distantly, shaking. The hand, that is.

"Oh my God," she said faintly, opening her eyes again, locking them once more on his. "I get it now. I _get_ it."

"Do you," he said. It might have been a question, but it wasn't. Not really.

And she did. She _did_. The reason why he'd turned tail and fled, choosing to vanish from the sight of the wizarding world just when he'd been vindicated, just when he'd finally, _publicly_, been given credit for everything he'd done throughout the war. Everything he'd sacrificed. Everything he'd _achieved_.

Because with that recognition had come publicity. Speculation. And, once all the details were out, pity. Loads and loads of pity. Pity from many sources, not least of all _her_.

"Yes." Her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. "I understand it now. I understand it perfectly. Oh, prof - uhm, Severus. I'm so sorry." She dropped her face forward into her hands, fingers clenching in the hair at her temples.

"Hm," he said again, meditatively. Then nothing more for a long time, as she wrestled with her tears. After several moments she heard him stand; pace to the end of the loft; pace back again. Pick up her plate and glass; carry them into the kitchen. Pace some more.

Eventually she raised her head and opened her eyes... couldn't hide her face in her hands forever, after all. He was leaning against the counter that separated the kitchen from the living space, watching her intently.

She swallowed hard.

He retreated _back_ into the kitchen, filled a glass with tap water, and brought it to her. She gulped it down gratefully.

"Well," he said at length, "I told you I'd return you to your hotel... if you wish. I was thinking, however, that we could get a bite to eat first. As it turns out, having a little bit of company from my past is not... as wholly unpleasant as I had imagined it would be. Besides which," he added a bit hastily, picking up, perhaps, on the expression of fresh astonishment that was dawning across her face, "one cannot simply arrive in San Francisco with a guidebook under one's arm and just... show oneself around. Or actually, in_ your_ case, I suppose one _can_. But that's not the way to see the city. To get a proper feel for it, you need to step out with a local."

"A _local_," she echoed, faint amusement now coloring her voice despite everything. "And that's _you?_"

"Well between the two of us here, I'm a damn sight closer than _you_ are. So what do you say?"

"I... I should..."

A polite refusal was right at the tip of her tongue, but then she paused, thinking it over.

To decline would be reflexive... but was it really what she wanted? To be escorted directly back to her hotel and _left_ there, deposited at the lobby to make her way back to the sterile, soulless confines of room 218? It was a nice room as far as hotel rooms went, sure, but... did she really want to just scuttle off back there, and... and...

And _what? _

Sit alone?

She didn't, actually, now she thought about it. Besides which -

"I _am_ a bit hungry," she admitted at last. The only thing she'd found to eat earlier were half-stale crackers. Really they'd only managed to whet her appetite. "What did you have in mind?"

Another lightning-quick glimpse of a smile flashed across his face, there and gone again so fast she had to wonder whether, in fact, she saw it at all.

"You'll find out when we get there," he said.


	5. Chapter 5

He had laundered the slacks and blouse she'd been wearing when he'd rescued her from the bus, and she changed back into them gratefully before they left. They ended up at a tiny hole-in-the-wall sushi restaurant on Geary Boulevard, one of the city's major east/west thoroughfares. Almost directly across the street, shining in the twilight like an outsize jewel, was a magnificent Russian Orthodox cathedral. Japanese restaurants and Russian churches... they weren't what most tourists came to San Francisco expecting to find. They were far off the tourist track. And yet she liked them. She liked them both, immensely. He had been right, she supposed. To get past the shallow, glittering tourist facade, to get a little deeper, a little closer to the heart of what San Francisco actually _was_, it seemed one did need to step out with...

A local.

Now it was _her_ lips that twitched with the hint of a smile.

She allowed him to order for her, not being terribly familiar with this kind of cuisine. His selections were unfailingly delicious, right down to the doughy little mochi balls they savored for dessert. And the hot saki... it was the perfect thing to take the chill out of a December night, not to mention keep the conversation flowing.

They stuck to lighter topics for the most part, eschewing any talk of the circumstances that had led first him, and then her, to take off running and not stop until they'd fetched up here, in this unlikeliest of locations halfway around the world from where they'd both begun.

Still, as the dinner drew to an end, Hermione couldn't help but acknowledge the all-too-familiar sense of melancholy that was starting to press in on her again.

"I, uhm," she said at length, eyes suddenly fixed on her empty dessert plate as though it were the most interesting thing in all the world, "I guess I _should_ write... just to Harry and Minerva... and let them know where I am. And that I'm okay. They won't spread it around if I ask them not to, and... and I do feel badly that they're worried. To leave without telling anyone, even Harry, that... that was thoughtless of me."

"Hm," he said again. It seemed to be his trademark phrase. "That will be difficult to do from your hotel."

"I... I hadn't thought of that." Her brow furrowed.

"How much longer were you planning to stay?" His question seemed somewhat abrupt, and there was an odd sort of... _undercurrent_... of intensity running just beneath the words. "Because I could recommend a couple of good wizarding establishments to you, if you'd be more comfortable someplace that has access to owl post and other wizarding amenities. Or -" there was just the barest hint of a pause, of hesitation - "I'd be happy to let you write them from my place, if you like."

"Oh." This suggestion was unexpected, but not, she found, at all unpleasant. "Do you have -"

"Parchment, quills and a post owl? Yes to all three. I haven't entirely forsaken the wizarding way of life."

"Then I... I think I'd like that." She suddenly felt ridiculous studying her silverware as if she were a shy schoolgirl afflicted with a severe case of the bashfuls. She looked up again, meeting his gaze now, squarely. "Thank you."

OOOOO

Composing the letters turned out to be more difficult than she'd anticipated. Sitting at the large and well-appointed desk in Snape's office area, she had barely put quill to ink when her hand started shaking. She could feel the tears pressing at the backs of her eyes.

For so long, she'd refused to cry about it, _any_ of it. Now that she'd started, she seemed unable to stop.

_Cry, cry, cry. Merlin, that's all you _do_. What is he going to _think_ of you?_

Interesting question, that. An even more interesting one would be, why should it _matter?_

But it did. God help her, it _did_ matter. She'd found herself enjoying his company to an astonishing degree. His keen observations, his flashes of wit and dark humor, his clear and sharp intelligence. There was no question that this man was her intellectual equal - and much as she'd loved Ron, and as devoted as she'd been to him, the same simply could not be said of her childhood-sweetheart-turned-husband.

_Former husband. Former_.

And so, it mattered. She didn't want to come off as weak, or helpless, or foolish, or some overly-emotional crybaby. And yet, she feared that was exactly how she was presenting herself. _ Exactly_.

She pulled in a shaky breath. Bit down on her lower lip. Dashed off a few lines to Harry. When she paused to read over it, though, she groaned with frustration. It didn't look like her writing at all. In fact, it hardly looked like _human _writing at all. It looked like something a troll might have written, while suffering a _seizure_. Harry would never be able to read this.

She dropped the quill onto the parchment, and dropped her _face_ into her hands, struggling for composure.

"He's an idiot, you know."

The voice came from right at her elbow, startling her badly. Several moments ago, when she had mounted the spiral staircase that separated Snape's office area from the rest of his living space, she had raised an unholy clatter. How had _he_ managed to climb those metal stairs so silently? Must come with practice, she supposed.

She jerked her head up just in time to see him place a steaming mug of coffee on the desk for her.

"What?" she asked, confused, her mind still very much on her failed attempt at correspondence. "Harry?"

"No. Not Potter. Well actually, I've had my suspicions about him for a while, now you mention it. But I was referring to the person who _caused_ you this distress." He conjured a second chair with a lazy flick of his wrist and, to her astonishment, sat down directly facing her, so close their knees were almost touching, pinning her gaze with his own.

"_Weasley._" He fairly spat out the name. "He's a goddamn fool, and one of these days, he will realize it. And he'll be beside himself when he does. You mark my words, Hermione. He'll go out of his mind. But that's not what's important."

"What's important?" she asked, her voice a shaky whisper, her heart suddenly beating in her throat.

He leaned even closer, raising a hand to thumb away the single tear that was trickling slowly down her cheek.

"You are so far out of his league," he said quietly. "You always were. _That's_ what's important, Hermione. That you know that. That you really understand it. It was obvious from the start, from the very beginning, way back when you were students, just children, at the school. There was this quality you had, even as a girl, Hermione, this... _light_. And because he was close to you, it reflected onto him. And if he was intuitive enough to think anything of it at all, to even _notice_ it, then I'm sure he just assumed that he was generating some of that light as well. But he wasn't. It was you. _Only_ you. And if he hasn't already started to notice that his life is suddenly darker and colder, he will very soon. You are remarkable, Hermione. I saw some of that even back in your Hogwarts days, but _now_ - now it's enough to knock a man off his feet. Even when you're lost and grieving and insecure, you're... sweet Merlin, you shine so _bright_. You are remarkable and you should know that. You should _own_ it. You did nothing to earn this treatment from him, you did nothing to deserve it. It's his own stupidity, and blindness, and selfishness; that's all. That's _all_, do you understand? Hermione, for God's sake, say you understand."

"I... I..." Her head was spinning. She didn't know _what_ she thought, or believed, or understood. She was just thunderstruck in the wake of his words. Completely dumbfounded.

His voice was lower when he next spoke; barely more than a rumble, deep in his throat. And his hand - good God, she realized, his _hand_ - it was still pressed to her cheek, he'd never pulled it back, and now he splayed out his fingers so that he was cupping the whole side of her face, gently, so _gently_, even though his fingers were roughened and calloused from years of exposure to caustic ingredients.

There was such warmth and strength in that hand - and in the _man_ it belonged to, as well - this silent and mysterious and introspective man who had just opened up to her, so unexpectedly, and on such a profoundly deep level.

"You have to believe it," he said. "You _have_ to believe it. Please."

And this was happening so fast, the whole situation should have felt just wildly out of control, _terrifyingly_ out of control. But it didn't. It didn't at all. To the contrary, it felt... it felt so utterly and wholly _right_ that it was almost as if it had been preordained somehow.

It felt like some force, something outside of her and yet intimately connected to her - call it God or fate or destiny, call it what you will - had been guiding her, leading her, hell, at times _shoving _her - toward just this moment in time. This exact, single, incredible, _breathless_ moment in time.

"It sounds possible," she croaked at last, and then swallowed hard and pressed her eyes briefly shut - two more fat tears spilled over to streak down her face - "but only when it's coming from you."

"Then I'll just have to keep saying it." Her eyes flew open again as she felt his lips brush hers in a brief yet tantalizing kiss. He pulled away again, quirking another tiny half-smile at her. "And saying it." He kissed her again. "And _saying_ it."

He leaned in to kiss her again but this time she beat him to it, throwing her arms around him and sealing her lips to his in a far deeper and more insistent kiss than any of the quick and cautious ones that had preceded it. He responded by wrapping his own arms around her and pulling her to him, _crushing_ her to him, so forcefully that she slipped right off the chair. They tumbled to the floor and the chair he'd been sitting on, the one he'd conjured up moments ago, transfigured itself into a featherbed so quickly that it was already waiting to embrace them by the time they landed.

"Wow," she breathed, breaking the kiss, impressed. "You're _good!_"

"No, Hermione. _You're_ good. And you deserve good things. And nothing but. You've lived through war, grief, and terrible betrayal. You've endured enough trauma and heartache to last a lifetime. You're so... _careworn_... it's difficult to see you like this without wanting to hurt... someone." His tone made it pretty clear who that _someone _actually was. "But you can put it behind you," he continued a moment later, "if that's the decision you choose to make. You can put it behind you and not look back. _I know_. That's why I was so devastated when I thought someone was hunting me down. Because I've put the past to bed and I've no _interest_ in looking back. Not now, not ever. It's so freeing, Hermione. It's amazing."

"_This_ is amazing," she murmured, staring up at him - he was propped on one elbow leaning over her; she was flat on her back half-sunk into the billowy softness of the conjured featherbed, her hair fanned out around her in a rumpled, dark corona. "This is _crazy_. This is... going so _fast_, and yet... and yet... do you feel it too, does it seem like this was meant to be, like it _had_ to be, like there's something... something larger than us, at work here?" Her mind flew over the sequence of events that had brought them to just this point. That he should seek refuge here; that _she_ should seek refuge here; and then the astonishing string of occurrences that had thrown her into his path. Losing her wallet, then losing her way; her suddenly desperate circumstances, alone and wandless, half a world away from her comfort zone, her safety net. Giving away her coat, giving away her _wedding ring_. And then that terrible, predatory man, and the bus, and the fact that her former professor had _been_ there, right _there_, in exactly the right time and place to be able to save her, and... and... "I mean," she said, with the smallest catch of hesitation in her voice, "it couldn't all have happened just by chance. _Could_ it?"

"No, Hermione," he said gently, "not by chance. I believe that only very few things in this life happen by chance. The biggest things... they're by design. And this is a big thing. Life-alteringly big, I think. So just -"

(he dropped a kiss on her left temple)

"- and I know this is hard for you -"

(followed by the right)

"- it's hard for me too, come to that -"

(the hollow of her throat, making her shiver)

"- but I'm convinced it would be best if we don't -"

(the very corner of her mouth, tantalizingly)

"-_ overthink this_."

And in that moment, she found that she agreed wholeheartedly. She surged upward, against him, pressing herself to him, _melding_ herself to him, twining her arms around him and burying her fingers in his hair, crushing her lips to his, and all conversation ceased for quite a while.

OOOOO

The light of a new day was pouring through the windows when Hermione finished her correspondence. Without delving into unnecessary detail, she laid out for both her best friend and her headmistress the basics of her current whereabouts and situation. She asked Harry to collect and send her a few of her things, first and foremost her wand. And informed McGonagall that she was taking an indefinite personal leave of absence from the school. She did not know, she wrote to each, _when_ she'd be coming back. She had a lot more exploring to do in San Francisco, as it turned out, than she'd ever expected when she'd booked her solitary holiday. Though she did not plan to check back into her hotel at Fisherman's Wharf. Or any other hotel, for that matter. She had happened upon infinitely better accommodations.

And this time, while writing, her hand didn't shake at all.


	6. Chapter 6

***EPILOGUE***

OOOOO

As it transpired, Snape had been absolutely right about Ron. Fewer than six months later, the owls started arriving. Hermione supposed he must have gotten her address from Harry. And she supposed she really ought to be cross with Harry about that, but try as she might, she simply couldn't manage it. It also occurred to her that she should perhaps write back to Ron and thank him for freeing her to become "truly happy." Those had been his own words, after all, on that fateful night when he'd returned from Australia and ripped her world to shreds. _Don't we both deserve to be truly happy?_

But she could no more bring herself to do that than she could bring herself to be upset with Harry. It would have been a snide thing to do, _pointlessly_ snide, and she was just too blissfully content, too suffused with well-being, too much at peace, to waste time or energy on such unpleasantness. She only read the first letter; skimmed it, really. Took note of certain phrases - _such a fool, love you so much, miss you like crazy, lost without you, worst mistake of my life, second chance, please Hermione, please_. Smiled and shook her head before sending his owl back empty-handed. Or empty-taloned, as the case may be. The flurry of owls that followed the first one, she simply sent back return-to-sender, still bearing the letters he'd written her, unopened. But she was kind to the birds, and allowed them to rest from their long journey, and gave them food and water before sending them on their way. That's just the sort of person she was. Eventually, they stopped coming.

Which was just as well with her. Not only was she wearing a lovely new wedding ring in place of the one she'd given away, but she was very busy these days. She thought she might return to teaching someday, but for the time being she was pursuing other interests, quite happily. Following the example of her new husband, she'd found that free-lance "consulting" work, in both the wizarding and Muggle sectors of society, was beneficial both financially, and in terms of allowing ample free time for other pursuits. Which was good, because lately she'd been doing a lot of personal reading - more, even, than was usual for her.

Titles such as, "What to Expect When You're Expecting" (from the Muggle bookstore down the street) and "The Complete Pregnancy Handbook for the Modern Witch" (ordered by owl post). Things like that.

They already knew that the child she carried within her was a girl, and had been conceived within a day or two of Christmas. They had already settled on a name; appropriately enough, Noelle. Standing in front of the loft's vast windows, more than twice as tall as she was, watching the city's lights twinkle and glow each evening, as both her stomach and the sense of fierce, nearly uncontainable joy within her swelled ever larger, she almost laughed remembering how overwhelmed she'd been by the sheer volume of those lights when she'd first arrived. Now she thought they were among the most beautiful things she'd ever seen. She could afford to be magnanimous.

Because even the doorless bathroom didn't bother her any longer. Halfway around the world from where she had always assumed she'd live out her life, in the arms of the _last_ man she would _ever_ have expected, she had finally come home.


End file.
